DENIS UHR MSC

This year we Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC) are commemorating the 150th anniversary of our foundation, and in Australia we will next year be commemorating our Centenary as a Province of the Society. We are currently paying special attention to the things that are important to us and to the future of our mission. The following, from the words of the Principal in the winter edition of Fortes, the magazine of Downlands College, Toowoomba, illustrates how—like other religious Congregations—the MSC are seeking to ensure that our mission will continue, especially through the co-operation of lay people.

ONE OF THE GREAT challenges facing Downlands and other Religious Order schools is how to keep the ethos and style of the Order when the numbers of the Order are few and those people are growing older. When I was at school here in the mid-50s there were something like eighteen priests and eighteen brothers working at the school. 

A few years ago I was in Jakarta and it struck me while I was having a meal in the MSC Provincial House that they have plenty of young priests and brothers in a way that we used to have in the 60s and 70s (we have six schools in Jakarta and I was there to visit them).

Since Vatican II and the changes in emphasis within the Catholic community in the western world people are not joining Religious Orders in the way they used to and this is a trend that will not change in a hurry.

Some years ago, the Australian MSC’s set up all our schools as public companies so that if the numbers of Religious working in the school became even zero there would still be a strong governance of the school by the Order through this structure. But more than that, what we have to recognise now is that the lay teachers, who once were the exception and are now the norm, must now become the MSC by developing a mindset and a heartset that enables them to run the school in an MSC style.

The role of the Religious as they move out of governing positions has now to become more of a ‘train the trainer’ role.  To assist in this we have set up what we call the Chevalier Institute to work with our staffs in all our schools to develop a ‘heart spirituality’ in all their professional and personal dealings with other staff and students.

This is an ongoing form of personal and religious development that I believe is crucial for the ongoing success of Downlands as it continues to be an active and wholehearted MSC school even though MSCs may not be actually present in the school. Of course, the retired community in Jubilee House keep a significant MSC presence, especially among staff and the boarding community.

One of the first ways we went about doing this, which began many years ago now, was to use our retreat house at Douglas Park where three times per year we sent several staff from each of our schools to spend a week being imbued with the origins and spirit of the MSCs. At each of our schools, too, we have enabled our staffs to have day retreats in small groups that focus upon the constitutions and works of the MSCs in Australia and to some extent overseas. We also ensure that several staff development days per year are focussed on personal and religious development rather than narrowly professional development.

So in various ways the challenge is there to the lay staff who choose to work at Downlands be it in the classroom, the boarding houses, the office, the kitchen and domestic areas and grounds to take the place of the priests and brothers not just functionally but also as people who have grown into the extended MSC family.

This is a challenge that will be with us for the long term. The resources of the Order will be more into a supportive role rather than operating in the day to day running of the school, though the longer we can keep the MSC active in the school, the longer we can preserve the MSC influence in its traditional way.

Fr Denis Uhr MSC is Principal of Downlands College Toowoomba. The principals in the other MSC colleges in Australia—Chevalier College (Bowral), Daramalan College (Canberra), Monivae College (Hamilton, Vic.)—are lay.